An international group of astronomers have discovered a
black hole nearly 12 billion times the mass of our Sun; their discovery was
report in the journal Nature recently. The discovery of a supermassive black
hole from the early universe is forcing scientists to rewrite physics. The supermassive
black hole, which formed nearly 900 million years after the Big Bang, is the cause
of a strong beam of bright material recognized as a quasar. Dr Fuyan Bian of
the Australian National University, says "When we found this supermassive
black hole we got very excited because we had found something that we never
thought we could find," The research group, managed by Xue-Bing Wu at
Peking University, detected the black hole and quasar -- acknowledged as SDSS
JO100+2802 – using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), then followed up with
three other different telescopes. With a brightness of 420 trillion that of our
Sun's, this new quasar is seven times brighter than the most of distant quasar
known so far. "This quasar is very unique. Just like the brightest
lighthouse in the distant universe, its glowing light will help us probe more
about the early Universe," says Xue-Bing Wu.

An artist's illustration of a monster supermassive black hole

This new discovery of the supermassive black hole fueling
the quasar presents a mystery: how can such a massive black hole develop so rapidly
in the early Universe? “It’s very hard to make these kinds of supermassive
black holes very early in the universe. We need to find some new theory that
can grow the supermassive black hole much faster than we thought" says Dr
Fuyan Bian. Supermassive black holes are supposed to have formed in conjunction
with massive galaxies in the early Universe but according to the present
theories there must be a cautious matching of forces to form a black hole. As
material accelerates under the force of gravity on the way to a black hole, its
temperature rises, releasing a surprising amount of energy in the form of a
quasar.

But the energy of the quasar essentially thrusts material
away from the black hole so if it is excessively great it can stop material sinking
onto to the black hole completely. These two forces must be well-adjusted,
which bounds how fast a black hole can propagate. This point, united with the
small amount of matter existing in the early Universe in the first place, make
it tough for researchers to clarify how the supermassive black hole came into
existence.

"With this supermassive black hole, very early in the
Universe, that theory cannot work. It's time for a new hypothesis and for some
new physics." says Dr Fuyan Bian.